


The Force Shall Set Us Free

by Suaine



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Gen, Jedi Training, M/M, Politics, fighting a war, fucked up star wars philosophies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 08:33:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5736808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suaine/pseuds/Suaine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey meets a crochety old man on a mountain, Poe needs a hobby, and Finn has interesting dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Force Shall Set Us Free

**Author's Note:**

> This is a little story about what could happen after the movie. It borrows shamelessly from what is now called Star Wars: Legends. I drop more than my fair share of new EU references. Don't let it bother you. But if you haven't read Aftermath, Before the Awakening and Shattered Empire, you totally should. They're rad.

“I cannot teach you.”

These were the first words Luke Skywalker said to Rey. He spoke quietly, his voice strained from disuse, though she could hear them just fine. They were words of sorrow, new pain layer upon layer on old wounds. She still held the saber in front of her, an offer and a plea. It had become so very heavy in her hand.

“I don't need a teacher,” she said. Kylo Ren had offered the same thing and she didn't quite understand why it was so important. Everything she knew she'd taught herself and she'd turned out pretty well. “But the Resistance needs you. General Organa needs you.”

Luke closed his eyes. “I know.”

Rey felt anger burn through her like molten sand. “Oh, you know? So you know about the people who died for your damn map? You know about the First Order and how it's going to destroy everything?” She had to take a gasping breath. “Then why are you still here?” It came out less forceful than she meant it to, tears somehow spilling out of her with the words. “Why?”

When Luke opened his eyes, she could see tears there as well. “There is something I have to do first.”

When he didn't elaborate, Rey dropped her hand, the saber still gripped tight. She walked forward, slowly like she would with a desert fox she didn't want to spook. “You've been doing it a long time.” She thought about a little girl, waiting patiently in a sea of sand. “Maybe what you're looking for isn't here.”

He sighed at that, tension going out of him in a rush. “Oh, it's here alright. I can feel it.”

Rey wondered what the problem could be. He'd spent years here and the planet wasn't that big, never mind that there were only a few islands. It couldn't have taken that long to search – she knew that from experience. “Is it hidden? Trapped? I've spent my whole life searching for hidden things, maybe I can help!”

Luke gave her a dry, sardonic twist of a grin. “We're not looking for a thing.”

+

The planet had once had a name, but no one was left to remember it.

She'd been right about the islands being few and far between, but what she hadn't anticipated was the fact that the planet had looked very different a few thousand years ago. There were whole cities on the ocean floor, whole countries and civilizations swallowed by melting ice.

Luke showed her the readouts and analyses, but the most impressive was taking his modified x-wing down into the deep. Their craft was the only source of light and everything looked frozen in time – the water had preserved most of the buildings and it seemed so very quiet.

Rey pointed at one of the bigger complexes. “What's that?” She'd felt... something when she looked at the structure. A strange, insistent pull.

Luke eyed her with a small smile. “That's where we're going.”

“Oh,” she said, a little intimidated and a lot excited. “Can we look inside?”

+

On the surface, everything had been wild and untouched, nothing betraying the years Luke had spent on this planet, but in the sunken city it suddenly became obvious. He'd jury-rigged pumps and airlocks to make most of the buildings accessible, drying them out with care to keep them from decaying any further. It was precise work, creating an atmosphere that would allow this old technology to come to shuddering life.

Rey touched the memory banks in awe. “This stuff, it's so old. How can it still work?”

Luke shrugged. “Solid engineering, luck and probably a little bit of the force.”

She could feel that, too. The force or something was humming just under her skin, wild and powerful and free. It reminded her of the desert sand, burning and callous. Beautiful. Vast.

“So what's in here? I'm assuming we're looking for some kind of information.”

Luke grinned. “You'd be right about that. Trouble is, I'm not quite sure. The force is good for a lot of things, but search algorithms seem to be beyond it.”

Rey nodded. “It seems to be partial to vagueness, doesn't it?”

Luke sat down in front of one of the old access panels. He hit several buttons in a sequence that had to be familiar to him by now and a holo-interface came to life. It was a bit blurred, the edges so fuzzy she could barely make out the species – in fact, she couldn't really place the species at all. It was humanoid, with small tentacles around the facial area, but nothing like Togruta or Twi'lek. “What is that?” She whispered but somehow the hologram's sensor had picked up on it.

“I'm a hologram, you little moron.”

Luke laughed, a sound Rey had yet to get used to. “That's an imprint of the Wrath of the Emperor, from about four thousand years ago. He stored some of his knowledge here, I assume because he was a bit of a narcissist.”

The hologram glared at Luke and crossed his arms. “See if I'm helping you now, Master Jedi.” He spat the last few words as if they were poison. Rey stared at the creature, whose accent sounded strangely familiar.

“He's been helping you find the information you seek,” Rey said, knowing it to be true.

The hologram, so very expressive and strangely human, sighed and sat down. She'd never seen an information interface like this. It was like the man was still alive, somewhere across the galaxy. “I'm not doing a very good job of it. I knew a man once who could slice into any system and get what you needed in days, maybe hours. But he's... well. Skywalker tells me it's been quite a while since either of us were alive.”

“I'm sure,” Luke said, gentle and respectful, “that wherever you are, you're together.”

Rey watched the hologram's face switch from sorrow back to sarcasm in the blink of an eye.

“With my luck, I'm a ghost bound to some pathetic little Sith lord on the Outer Rim. Probably Hoth. Definitely Hoth. That's one hell of a planet.”

Rey frowned. “I've never been to Hoth. What's so bad about it?”

Luke and the hologram exchanged glances. “It's cold,” Luke said. The hologram grimaced. “Cold as balls.”

The hologram shuddered and Luke laughed. “For your information though, there aren't any Sith left in the galaxy, so it's very unlikely.”

At that the hologram raised his eyebrow ridges. “Maybe that's not what they're called anymore, but there will always be Sith. Just as there will always be Jedi. Because we're all stumbling blind in a world too big for us.”

Wondering about that, Rey asked: “Why do you say that?”

Suddenly new interfaces popped up, historical data, scholarly work, pages upon pages of information from different sources. They all described the Jedi order, the exodus of the Sith, the war that had waged between them for thousands and thousands of years. “Because,” the hologram said, serious for once, “the Jedi and the Sith are just two ways to try to understand something that is far beyond us. The force is so much more than we can imagine.”

“Right, why don't you talk to our friend here a little longer while I go down there?”

Luke nodded at a corridor leading further into the building. Rey wasn't sure if he'd addressed her or the hologram, not that it mattered. She grinned and settled down in front of the panel. “Sure, we can do that. Right, Sir Wrath?”

The hologram grinned at her. “Are you sure you wish to leave such a young, impressionable mind in the presence of a sith?”

Shrugging, Luke turned to leave. Rey could see the small smile on his lips. “She's got a good head on her shoulders, I think she'll be fine. Never mind that you were never very good at being sith.”

The hologram sighed theatrically. “It's just that they were so stupid.” He looked at Rey. “All that infighting and murdering, such a waste of potential.”

Rey felt something of a scavenger in him, something of the desert. Would he, in her situation, have turned over BB-8 to Unkar Platt? Or did his philosphy extend beyond immediate gain? She felt that she already knew the answer, knew why he helped them now, why Luke seemed to like him so much. She could sense the light in him, an ocean of it where her own was just a puddle.

+

When they returned to the surface, Chewbacca had prepared a veritable feast. There was fish and some kind of root vegtable, some sort of creamy sauce and a small salad of berries and other fruit. R2-D2 beeped excitedly that it had found and collected the berries. Rey smiled at the droid.

“You did great, both of you. It all looks incredible.” She'd lived on dried rations for so long that any one of these things would have made her mouth water.

The food tasted divine and Chewbacca told them tales of how he'd caught the impressive trout-thing with a spear he'd made himself. The wookie had taken to the oceans and cliffs so fast, Rey was a little surprised. She'd heard that Kashyyyk was a jungle world, a world of trees and moss and undergrowth, nothing like the harsh rocks, vast waters and open sky they'd found here. But then there was a peace on this world that made grieving a less painful process. It was easy to hear the voices of the dead here and not confuse them for hauntings.

Rey had not felt closer to her family anywhere else, certainly not on Jakku. Swallowing the last of her food, she let herself ask. “What makes this planet so special?”

Looking out toward the sea, Luke gathered his thoughts. “The force flows through everything. It is the same in a human, a bothan, a wookie, even a droid. It thrums through the surface of a planet and the center of a star. But here, somehow, it feels different. Like the start of a journey.

“I was looking for the first temple of the ancient Jedi because I needed to know more about them. I needed to know how it all worked. Because we fall to the darkness so easily and when we do, there is little of us left in the person that remains.”

Rey frowned. She thought of Kylo Ren and what he had done. Luke's words sounded like the easy way out for a man who'd chosen his own fate and helped kill billions of people. “So you think the force corrupts them. Makes them into evil puppets. But who is left to pull the strings?”

“That's a good question.”

“You don't know,” Rey said, nodding.

“I was hoping to find that out. If we can find the source, maybe we can cure the disease.”

Rey mulled over the words and found them solid and true. If a piece of machinery wasn't doing what it should, fixing just the surface issues would set you up for more trouble down the line. Attacking the root of the problem was the only way to properly fix a broken thing.

+

On D'Qar, there was no time for grief.

General Organa had assembled all her pilots, a desperately small number and getting smaller every time they engaged the enemy. She seemed different, harder than before, like something precious had been torn out of her. Which, of course, it had been.

“The attack on Starkiller base was a victory and I am proud of each and every one of you.” She looked at each of them in turn, but the moment was over much too quickly. The holes in their ranks were so large, the silence deafening. Poe could not meet her gaze – he knew what was coming next.

“But I stand here, today, with soldiers who do not trust my judgement. I failed as a commander.” Poe wanted to protest, even knowing that his input especially would not be welcome. She'd trusted him and he had turned against her. He'd undermined her authority with the pilots and the base staff, never mind the other leaders of the resistance. “In hindsight, what you did was courageous because you succeeded – no more lives were lost, including those on the Falcon.”

General Organa sighed and Poe couldn't take it anymore. “I'm sorry, General,” he blurted out. “I just couldn't leave them behind.”  
When he looked at her, finally, he found an expression that shook him to the core. Leia Organa, for once in her life, looked defeated. “I know,” she said quietly.

Poe didn't know what to do with that. He could deal with righteous anger, even disappointment, but this was beyond him. “I assure you, it's not going to happen again. We do trust you. All of us.” He looked at his squadron, at blue and red leader, and all of them nodded. They looked upset, chastized. They, much like him, had expected an epic dressing-down – not this human frailty in a person so much larger than life.

Leia took them all in. She smiled, a bit lopsided. “I know you've all grown up on the stories of heroes and sacrifice, but we're no longer the rebellion. We're not fighting against an oppressive regime anymore. Starkiller base was one thing, but we can't afford losses like that again. We're trying to build a new world and we need you alive for that.”

Poe nodded, even though he didn't quite understand. They were here so other people didn't have to be, fighting against the dying of the light. He'd let himself be captured, tortured, even killed if it could prevent what happened to the Hosnian system. “None of us are in a hurry to die, ma'am.” He said it with conviction, believing it to his very core, but Leia looked at him and suddenly he wasn't so sure.

“You're all grounded for the next three days. No duties. Find something to live for in the little time we have. Then we're off this planet. We have no idea what's left of the first order, but Snoke is still out there and that means they're going to come for us.”

She looked kindly at them, warmth spilling through the cracks in her armor. Poe fought the urge to hug her. “Dismissed.”

+

Poe wasn't allowed near the x-wings and even though it was not meant as a punishment, it surely felt like one. He wandered the base, haunted the mess hall, and altogether made a nuisance of himself to everyone who'd indulge him.

He came across the makeshift clinic and didn't go in, because Finn was there but still absent and that was... not good. He'd known the man for all of a few hours taken altogether, it shouldn't feel so horrifying to see him lying there like his mother had in the end. And yet-

“The doctors say he's going to be fine,” came a familiar voice.

Poe turned to face General Organa, at a loss for what to say. He nodded. “They said that about mom, too.”

“She was a good woman. Great pilot, but a better person. Back when she was still on active duty, she refused to let me write her condolence letter. I wouldn't have known what to say anyway.”

Poe thought back to his childhood, the stories of war heroes and leaders, and Leia Organa's hand on his shoulder as he cried at the funeral. “You did alright, in the end.”

Leia turned to watch Finn through the open door, a contemplative silence settling over both of them. Poe itched to do something, to run away, to yell.

“I knew she was dying probably before she did. It's- it's the force and what a terrible gift it is. Luke can wield a lightsaber and move objects with his mind and I get...” She waved at the clinic. “I know when people are dying. I felt it when Alderaan was torn to pieces, I think that's what triggered it. Because the force works through us, through what we think we should be able to do.”

Poe watched her watch Finn, mesmerized by the far away expression, so sorrowful yet serene. “I'm sorry,” he said, because what else was there to say to a woman who had lost so much and felt it so strongly?

Leia shook her head and turned to him. She looked into his eyes, making him feel all of eight years old again. She grasped both his shoulders, her palms warm and strong. “I was not fishing for sympathy, my boy. You know better than most that we don't yet have the luxury to properly grieve. But I'm telling you that Finn is going to be fine. He's going to recover. Do you understand?”

All of a sudden, Poe did. A weight he only noticed by its absence had gone from his chest, some restriction had loosened and he gave her a watery smile. “I think I understand.”

+

The force had always been a part of Poe's life, or so it seemed to him with stories of Luke and Leia and the rebellion so prominent in his childhood. He'd grown up knowing, without a doubt, that there was something connecting him to the galaxy, to the stars. It was the connection to other people he sometimes had a problem with. There was something off-putting about him, something that made people wary of him until they got to know Poe.

Few ever made the effort. His pilots were the exception, but beyond them and General Organa, Poe had no luck with people and getting close to them. He had a reputation for being arrogant, daring to the point of senseless self-sacrifice. It was a great profile for a hero, not exactly an advertisement for a boyfriend.

For the most part Poe didn't let it bother him. But with the General's orders to find something fun to occupy his time for the next few days, he realized how much of his life had been swallowed by the fight, and how little he actually knew how to live it.

He needed a hobby.

On a secret military base, surrounded by nothing but jungle, Poe Dameron was on a quest to find meaning in his life beyond the fight. He knew that his mother and father had burned for the Rebellion, they'd never faltered, never wavered in their commitment. They would have died for the cause without regret.

Except – when the fighting was over, they retired. They took him to Yavin 4 with a tree for company and they made a little home. Poe thought about calling his father, asking him how he managed to go from soldier to whatever it was he did now. Poe never felt the need to ask, before. To him they had always been what the stories had made them – his parents, yes, but larger than life sometimes. His mother was a pilot and she would always remain a pilot, now, without her input into what else she could have been.

A part of him already knew that the difference between them and him was that they had had each other. They had him, even before the war was won and it had made them more daring, but more cautious, too. They had a reason to live because they loved each other and they loved their son. This, at least, had never been in doubt. Poe had grown up with love, surrounded by it, filled to the brim with affection and trust.  
Nothing could take that away.

But the memory of love was what propelled him out there, to fight, to burn. It didn't bring him home again. He thought about the desert on Jakku and where his mind had gone, half-dead from heat, pain and exhaustion. The first thing that had pushed him ahead, to keep going and find... well... him. The stormtrooper who'd saved his life. Maybe in more than one way.

Poe shook his head ruefully. He'd be better off learning to knit than put his hopes there. He'd seen Rey and Finn together, knew what it meant.

+

Leia watched as the base folded itself neatly into boxes and crates, as her people scurried around to fit things into tight spaces. They'd leave quickly, transport ships ready to take them now if need be. She would not lose a single person here on this little green planet, whether the First Order came for them or not.

The ache inside her wasn't too much, not yet. She'd dealt with losing Han and Ben before, she had a place for her grief locked away inside her heart, had had it for a long time. It would come, she knew that much, remembered dark moments between one fight and another when her light had almost been extinguished.

Her rage and pain didn't scare her, it didn't make her worry that she could fall to the dark. That was a boyish fear, the problem of men who were scared to feel anything because the universe had taught them that strength was stoic and bloodless. She worried, though, that once she let herself experience the pain it would cripple her for too long. She needed to be ready, now, she needed to fight.

Han's death – and she knew he was dead, knew his last thoughts had been for their boy – had pierced through her like a blaster bolt. She couldn't let it bleed. Not yet.

There was a war to win, first. She would find Snoke and she would tear him apart.

+

Poe found himself at Finn's bedside the night before they were scheduled to leave the planet. General Organa had not revealed their new destination, but Poe had heard rumors that it would be unpleasant. D'Qar, the Rebellion veterans said, was a damn miracle as far as bases went. Then they'd speak with haunted eyes of Hoth and the cold.

Sighing he sat and watched as Finn breathed, which was the extent of his abilities at the moment. The doctors came by every once in a while, looking harrassed and slightly out of breath – they had a lot of stuff to pack up, stuff that was small and fragile and breakable. For all Finn's motionless silence, he was none of those things. He was solid and real, and Poe felt the need to touch in the tips of his fingers.

“How are you guys going to move him?” Poe asked one of the nurses checking Finn's readings.

The Miralan narrowed his eyes at Poe, as if in question. “Very carefully.”

Poe couldn't help but roll his eyes. “I was just... interested. Are you putting him on a troop transport, cargo, something else?” He thougth about flying the Pinnacle he'd nearly stolen for the General, turning a traitor's luxury ship into a hauler for Resistance knick-knacks and one very important person. Now that would have been a good use for all those millions of credits.

“I'm just saying, I could take him.”

The nurse gave him a cutting glare. “We're not cramming a critical patient in the back of your x-wing, Commander.”

Poe grinned, knowing full well the disarming effect it could have on the general public. There was a fine line between people being star-struck and resentful. “Ah, but the fighters are grounded until further notice. General Organa has us piloting shuttles. It's a character building exercise.”

“Can't build something on nothing,” the nurse muttered. Then he shook his head, smiling down at Finn. “No wonder he did something dumb and self-sacrificial if you were the first contact he had with the resistance.”

Poe gasped, hand to his heart. “Hey, now, I always come back, don't I?”

The Miralan nurse looked up and Poe had to face away from the raw pain in those eyes. The Miralan were a sensitive people and sometimes that could feel like being flayed open by honesty. “Yes, so far, _you_ have always returned. Not all under your command are so lucky.”

Poe swallowed hard, all the words he could use to defend himself stuck in his throat, choked by all too familiar guilt. The nurse took pity on him by laying a hand on his shoulder, probably his training winning out.

“Look, they all make their own choice and no one blames you for what happens out there. The First Order is the one pulling the trigger and we're all here because we've chosen to fight them.”

“Yeah,” Poe said, “but I'm the lucky one who comes back despite his best efforts. Isn't that what my psych eval says?”

“That's between you and the General, buddy.” The nurse sounded affronted, as if his entire squadron's myriad issues weren't the base's favorite gossip.

+

When Mon Motha had put the political gears of the New Republic in motion, she'd had years of war and before that years of senate experience to tell her what not to do. It was a daunting task to work through fears and resentment, ennui and bitterness, to find that small spark of hope. Maybe the galaxy didn't need a single governing body. Maybe everyone would be okay on their own.

But the chance that they might not be was too great a risk. Government could be for the people, it was supposed to be a way to unite and uplift individuals, turn them into a society. Even criminals had governments – the hutt cartel had their own harshly enforced rules.

She named Leia Organa senator of Alderaan.

Though the planet was gone, Alderaan still had outposts all over their old system and many millions of Alderaanians who'd not been on the planet when it was destroyed. It was also symbolic – the power of the dark side could destroy on a massive scale, but it had never been able to take away the core of something. It had never succeeded in eradicating the Jedi and it would not succeed in the annihilation of Alderaan.

It was Leia who put the Alderaan proposal to a vote. “Senators,” she said, in her first speech before the new legislative body of the New Republic. “I put before you a measure that will ensure the strength and diversity of our union for years to come. We will spread out the cost of maintaining the senate among all member systems and all of us will take turns hosting these meetings on a rotating schedule.”

The measure passed, barely, with many voicing their concerns. Could the senate be effective this way? Who would potentially pay more than their fair share and who got to decide what that even was? Would senators be required to travel all the time or could they attend via holo?

Ultimately, the sky did not fall and people being people, they got used to the very old Alderaanian idea of a traveling government – taken from kings that lived long before space travel and had no holdings of their own, but were invited by their vassals. All host worlds kept the systems in place that would allow the senate to return time and again.

No one, not even Mon Mothma, realized that Leia had that very redundancy in mind when she created her proposal. Her life's work would be to prevent the tragedy of Alderaan happening to any other system, but she was practical enough to have a plan B.

+

Finn did not rest easy.

+

On a green and blue planet, there was an island.

On an island, Rey sat.

Rey sat for hours.

Her legs were crossed tightly, her back straight as she could make it. Relaxation seemed not to be the goal in this exercise because her entire body was screaming with the strain. Luke had gone off somewhere, probably to help Chewie with the fish.

Rey sat.

Her eyes were closed. Her only instruction had been to look inside herself.

She felt anger and frustration. These were not new emotions, nor were they impossible to set aside. Growing up on Jakku, waiting for her parents to return, Rey had known both of them well. Anger and frustration were not her enemies. She knew that they could be tools.

Rey sat, alone.

She felt something in her chest, a rapid flurry of a thing.

She sat alone.

Alone.

Her eyes opened and she shuddered. Getting up, she grabbed her staff to go look for the others. She'd spent enough time waiting for people to come back to her.

+

Finn did not rest at all.

While his body lay motionless, his mind was whirling. At first, the snow-covered forest of Starkiller base grasped at him, replaying the events that led to his failure over and over again. Kylo Ren became a well-worn haunt, more specter than man.

Strangely, Rey was never in these dreams. It was always the injured, insane, powerful boy, who had just killed his father, pushing and pushing at Finn until, ultimately, Finn always gave in.

He knew these were dreams.

Kylo Ren killed him a hundred times in that forest. It was the hundred and first time that Finn had finally found the right grip on the lightsaber, the right stance, the right swing. His mind was running him through simulations, just like the First Order had done.

He'd fought Jedi before, in those simulations. Somewhere deep in his mind he knew how to beat someone like Kylo Ren.

So he did. He calmed himself and let the battle wash over him. He took calculated swings, parried as best he could and waited for his opening. It came rather faster than he would have expected, with Kylo missing a step due to his injury.

Finn didn't hesitate. He struck out with all his power.

Kylo Ren shattered.

It was a dream.

Where Kylo had been, someone else appeared in a sudden flurry of snow. A man, hands on his hips and a smirk on his face.

“Took you long enough, kid,” said Han Solo.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm suaine on [tumblr](http://suaine.tumblr.com), if you want to come hang out and talk about Star Wars and other stuff.


End file.
